This blog is where you can follow Cap'n Salty and his intrepid crew, aka Dave Spotts and his loyal family, on their journey. We are seeking out the treasure of historic, confessional Christianity in this world of shifting sand.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Forgiveness is essential to the Christian life. Guthrie emphasizes Jesus’ demand that we forgive others. I observe that her exegesis is again based on the NLT version, which does not reflect the original, choosing to add a qualifier that we forgive if we are holding a grudge. The text simply says if we have anything against someone we must forgive. Guthrie pushes our stubborn unforgiveness which is less forceful than what Jesus says, but she suggests we are all stubborn.

What of times when we would justifiably hold something against someone? Maybe we hve been hurt, possibly badly. Jesus says we are forgive. [At this point, Guthrie uses the NIV translation of Mark 11:25, which is much closer to the original.] Jesus, in fact, is willing to give his own life for forgiveness, generously, regardless of the cost, regardless of our sin. It is this grace of God which motivates us and enables us to forgive others.

Guthrie hints at, but does not come out and say, that the Christian life is one of repentance and forgiveness. Yet all the while she keeps coming back to our need to forgive. Jesus is present as the one who helps us do better, but not as our forgiver. This finally leaves us working out our own salvation rather than receiving a salvation based on grace. It is salvation by works. This is not the comfort for the soul in anguish I would expect to find in a Christian book chapter about forgiveness.

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About Me

Cap'n Salty, aka Dave Spotts, teaches English vocabulary and Koine Greek at The Potter's School (www.pottersschool.org), a web-based provider of classes for home schooled junior high and high schoolers. He also teaches an introductory Paideia and a high school Rhetoric course at Wittenberg Academy (www.wittenbergacademy.org). And whose life is complete without a third job? This one is teaching Greek for preseminary students at the American Lutheran Theological Seminary (www.alts.edu). He is on an exciting theological journey toward the solid rock of confessional Christian faith and practice. Where will it lead? In 2014 it led to a move from service at Faith Lutheran Church in Watseka, Illinois, to taking up residence in Columbia, Missouri. Wittenberg Door Campus Ministry is in process now, bringing genuine Law and Gospel to the community of the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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